Tips on How to Avoid Forgetting to Take Your Medications

If you’re new to taking medication, you may find that you need to remember to take it. Here are a few tips to help you do that.

Educate yourself

Educate yourself about your medical condition. Learn about your medications and this will help you to take your medications. For example, if you suffer from depression and you are taking an antidepressant daily, it always helps you if you are able to identify some of those symptoms, do some reading on it. It also helps if you try to understand how your medication will help you to feel better. Also know the side effects and this will help you to recognize them if they occur. For example, if you never had a headache prior to taking a new medication, and if you develop that after the first few doses of your new medication, it comes in handy if you already knew that one of the common side effects of your new medication is a headache. This helps you to go to your doctor and ask for help when it happens.

Make it a daily routine

Try to tie your drug doses with a daily routine like as soon as you wake up, or after a meal, or when you get ready for bed. If you have to take a medication right before breakfast, make sure you try to take your pill as soon as you wake up, and then go about doing your other daily activities. If you take your medication daily at the same time, soon you will develop a habit of taking it daily.

Reminders

You may use reminders like Apps on your smart phone. Some examples are ‘ Medisafe Medication Reminder, Tabtime Vibe Vibrating Pill Timer Reminder’ and so on. You could try one of these Apps and see how it works. You could also use a calendar and mark on it daily after you take your pills for that day. You could use an alarm that could be set to remind you when to take your medications. You could also sign up at websites like www.scriptyourfuture.org , which may be helpful. Keeping medications in an easy to see spot also helps.

Pill boxes

Pill boxes are an organization tool for your pills that can easily be found at most pharmacies. Pill boxes are also very useful for people who take multiple medications each day and at different times. You could get these pill boxes in any pharmacy near you like Walmart, target, walgreens and so on.

Use your support system

Make use of your family and friends. Ask them to remind you to take your medications daily. If you have a spouse or partner or a best friend who could remind you by asking you a simple question daily about taking your medication, that helps a lot. You could also use peer support groups in your area.